LAWMAKERS UNVEIL SPY AGENCY PLAN

By ELAINE SCIOLINO,

Published: February 6, 1992

WASHINGTON, Feb. 5—
The chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees today proposed a sweeping reorganization of the nation's intelligence agencies, a move intended to jolt the Bush Administration and Congress into changing the intelligence system to fit the needs of the post-Communist world.

The joint plan, included in separate but similar bills, stands little chance of winning White House support or Congressional approval. But it serves as the opening salvo in what promises to be an intense debate in Congress and the Administration this year on the future of American intelligence agencies.

The plan also gives Senator David L. Boren, the Oklahoma Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Dave McCurdy, the Oklahoma Democrat who heads the House Intelligence Committee, a chance to set the agenda for the debate. Fulfilling a Prediction

The plan, announced in a news conference by the two lawmakers, also fulfills the prediction that Robert M. Gates, the Director of Central Intelligence, made during his confirmation hearings last fall: If the Administration does not change the mission and structure of American intelligence in the post-cold-war era, then Congress will.

The plan would cut the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency in half and empower an "intelligence czar" with stronger control over the collection, analysis and clandestine operations than the current C.I.A. director.

The Senate version, the Intelligence Reorganization Act of 1992, would also transfer many of the intelligence functions of the Secretary of Defense to the new chief.

In an apparent effort to win the support of Mr. Gates, the two intelligence panel chairmen said Mr. Gates would become the new super-chief with the title of Director of National Intelligence.

The most divisive feature of the proposal would abolish the intelligence agency's role as the primary producer of analysis for the Government and create a separate analytical body that would report to the new director. Both Mr. Gates and his senior managers are likely to reject such a radical move, which would cause enormous disruption among agency analysts and largely reduce the C.I.A. to gathering intelligence from sources around the world and conducting occasional covert operations. New Budgeting Authority

Another contentious feature would give the new director the authority to budget and spend most of the money for intelligence. The Secretary of Defense now has most of the authority over the spending of the military-related intelligence budget, which accounts for about 80 percent of the nation's total intelligence budget.

Although the Secretary would retain control of the "tactical" miilitary intelligence budget affecting direct support for military units, the new intelligence director would control expenditures for such agencies as the Defense Intelligence Agency, the analytical intelligence arm of the Pentagon and the National Security Agency.

Mr. Boren said the restructuring plan would eliminate wasteful duplication and what he called the "intelligence empires" entrenched throughout the Government at a time when the intelligence budget was certain to shrink by billions of dollars a year. He arguedthat the effort to streamline intelligence throughout the Administration into three divisions -- analysis, collection of intelligence and clandestine operations -- all reporting to the new director, would significantly enhance their accountability.

"I view this proposal as the launching pad -- the beginning, not the end, of a process of discussion," Senator Boren said in an interview. "How much our final product will resemble this I don't know. But Democrats and Republicans alike ask me the same question: 'With all the changes in the world are you folks just going to let the C.I.A. and the intelligence community to do business as usual?' And I know that sometimes the system needs an electric shock to get things going." Officials Caught Off Guard

Senator Boren denied that the plan was an effort to derail an initiative by President Bush and Mr. Gates to reorganize the intelligence apparatus, which includes the C.I.A., electronic and surveillance agencies and a host of other fiefdoms in the military services and Government agencies. That initiative is not scheduled to be unveiled until late March, at the earliest, after Mr. Gates has the opportunity to study reports from 20 different offices and agencies identifying their intelligence needs.

The Congressional proposal, which was initially scheduled to be unveiled on Thursday, seemed to catch officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the C.I.A. off guard. Officials at the White House and Pentagon said they would have no comment until they had had time to study the plan. At the C.I.A., both Mr. Gates and his chief Congressional liaison, Stanley Moskowitz, were out of town and unreachable for comment.

A C.I.A. statement issued late in the day made no reference to the Boren-McCurdy proposal, but said: "There have already been restructuring changes, and there are a number of initiatives under active consideration that will affect almost every part of the intelligence community. Director Gates would like to see the process that is under way come to closure."